Jessica

Just days after having its pretty pink heart slashed by failed negotiations with potential buyer Robert De Niro, the perpetually hemorrhaging Observer may be acquired by 25-year-old Jared Kushner, son of once-incarcerated real estate developer Charles Kushner (who has been since banished to a Newark halfway house through August). The elder Kushner was sent to prison last year for witness-tampering and illegal campaign contributions; as revenge for his sister's cooperation with the federal investigation, Kushner sent a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, taped the incident and then sent it to his sister. This lovely man's son and the paper's potential buyer, wee Jared, is set to finish both NYU law and business schools next year, and Kushner flack Howard Rubenstein characterizes the talks as "serious." So yes, it's gotten that bad over there.

As their fates are suddenly resting in the possibility of a very young savior (and, we predict, his inevitable desire for more coverage of Marquee and the Plumm), no one at the Observer is willing to say much. That's fitting, since it seems that not one piece of sale coverage, from early talks onward, has ever deemed the Observer staff fit to figure into the story. No reporters from other publications have ever seriously called the paper's newsroom for information or rumblings, neither on record nor on background. So who cares what veteran staffers think about having their bread-and-butter handed to a 25-year-old scion? The Observer is just a chic, niche entity to be bought and sold — and a sassy peach paper would be the perfect graduation gift for young Jared.